The alarm woke Roxanne the next morning, but instead of pressing the snooze button, she bounced right out of bed. She didn't want to wait around the extra fifteen minutes; she wanted to get downstairs as soon as possible because today was her first day of magic training with Gray!
Here she was, living out her dream of being a Fairy Tail mage, and she was the apprentice of Gray Fullbuster! Just thinking about it gave her goosebumps. She felt so alive already, as if this was where she was really meant to be.
How had my life gotten to be so amazing?
She rushed through her morning routine, not bothering to make up her bed or brush her hair. She was out the door in record time and she descended the long staircase at breakneck pace. When she reached the bottom she skipped the last step entirely; The pads of her feet stung slightly from the impact when she landed, but she was too excited to care. She dashed to her seat at the bar and scrambled onto it, feet swinging impatiently as she waited for her food.
Mira read her in a heartbeat, holding back a giggle to a mere dancing-eyes smile as she tended the frying pan where eggs and bacon sizzled. She slipped the bacon onto a plate the moment it was done, placed the eggs on a slice of toasted bread, dashed salt and pepper over them, and set the plates in front of the new mage.
Roxanne wanted to wolf the food down, but after burning her tongue on the first bite she forced herself to slow down and chew properly. It would be awful if her first lesson with Gray was how to keep from choking on her own food! Still, she finished faster than she ever had before, and immediately jumped down from her stool with a hasty thank-you to Mira for her breakfast. Just like her first day in Magnolia, she was too excited to keep still, had too much excess energy rushing through her veins. She needed to move!
So she did. Most of Fairy Tail's mages weren't morning people, so the guild hall was relatively deserted, and Roxanne felt justified in dashing up and down the rows between tables, dodging the few benches that were not entirely pushed up beneath them. She ran until her breaths came fast and hard, but still the energy burned inside her, and she realized that she needed to find another way to calm down. Scrambling on top of one of the side-tables, she laid down in as comfortable a position as she could find and started the familiar breathing pattern for meditation.
When Gray finally entered the guildhall, he found his new apprentice lying flat on her back on a table, eyes closed and motionless. He looked to Mira, who had finished her duties behind the bar and was now prepping the rest of the guild hall. "What is she doing?" he asked, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb Roxanne.
"Meditating, I think," his white-haired guildmate whispered in reply.
Gray gave her a puzzled look. "Why?"
"Well, she was very excited about starting her magic lessons with you today," Mira said, eyes dancing at the way he shifted uncomfortably. "She couldn't sit still earlier, practically inhaled her food and ran around the hall about ten laps without breaking a sweat. I think this is her last ditch effort to calm down."
"Oh." Gray's brows rose, genuinely impressed. He was both flattered and embarrassed by how eager Roxanne was. The ribbing from everyone else last night had made him nervous about teaching a girl like her, who seemed to admire him almost a little too much. He didn't know much about her, but he'd seen the determination and relief burning in her eyes last night when he had agreed to be her mentor, and he knew that they had something in common: She needed magic. She needed to prove to herself that she could become a true mage of Fairy Tail, the same way he'd needed magic when the heart had been torn out of his world and all he'd had left was the need to never be helpless again, to save people from the fate he had endured.
Knowing this now, he was going to do everything he could to prove he was worthy of her obvious admiration, to be the kind of teacher that Ur and Makarov had been to him. He wanted to take her under his wing, teach her and help her flourish in the face of adversity.
Gray let out a deep, shaky breath, nervously setting his mind back to the task at hand. "Roxanne."
Immediately, her eyes popped open and she sat up. Before he could say anything else, she was off the table and dashing over to stand in front of him. "I'm ready to go!" she proclaimed eagerly, practically bouncing on her toes with excitement. "What do we do first?"
He chuckled at her enthusiasm and turned towards the door. "Come on, I'll tell you at the park. Thanks for your help, Mira."
"Any time, Gray." The white-haired mage nodded and went back to the prep-work.
Roxanne followed him, waving goodbye to Mira. "Thanks, Mira! See you soon!"
"Take care!" Mira replied as she waved back.
Gray took Roxanne to the same park where she had been training with Makarov, and smiled at the puzzled look she gave him.
"Okaaaaay," Gray began, taking up Makarov's spot under the shade of the tree. "A lot will change from your training with Gramps, but there will still be a few elements that will stay the same. Now that you've found your magic, you don't need to meditate three times a day, although it's a good idea to keep doing it at least once." Originally he'd kind of planned to drop it, but after what he'd seen this morning, he'd changed his mind.
"I decided to keep this part of your training because meditation is supposed to help with inner peace or whatever. Personally, I don't meditate; it doesn't do anything for me and I feel stupid, but if it works for you then keep doing it." The way her eyes were glued to his face made it pretty clear that yes, she had been listening. "Everything you do is with the goal of making yourself stronger. Not just for the sake of being strong, but to protect yourself, your friends, and the people around you. Magic is awesome, but it can be dangerous too, if you use it wrong which is why you are never to practice magic on your own until you have a better grasp on your magic. Why?"
"Because magic is dangerous when not used properly!" Roxanne chirped confidently, responding without missing a beat.
"That's right! So, no practicing magic on your own for now. Got it?"
"Yes, Master Gray!"
Gray twitched. "Don't call me that," he requested as gently as he could. He didn't want to sound harsh, but it was one thing to call Gramps 'master'. He was a guild master, and old, and had experience as a teacher. Calling Gray that was, well, kind of weird and creepy feeling. "Gray is fine."
"Can I call you teacher?" Roxanne's blue-green eyes shone eagerly.
"Just Gray," Gray said firmly. "Anyway, like I said, your first priority is getting stronger, so we'll leap right into the easy physical training. Stretches, warm-ups, and then self-defense training first. Then, we'll do the harder conditioning training. After that, we'll work on magic training. When we're done, we'll go swimming to cool down and push your muscles a bit further."
"Okay!" Roxanne chirped, almost bouncing on her toes again. She took a couple of deep breaths before she could slip into fangirl mode, and set the miracle that was her life to the back of her mind so she could focus on her training. "Yes, sir!" she said, much more firmly.
Gray noticed her reigning herself in, and was again impressed by that self-control. He'd been kind of an idiot as a kid, driving himself past what even Ur thought was reasonable out of sheer desperation. Given he was the one training her, it was probably a good thing Roxanne had more restraint, because he still had no idea how to properly teach a youngster. He was hoping that she would tell him when enough was enough and then he could back things down.
"Alright," he said. "Let's get started."
For the next few hours, Gray led Rox through her usual warm-ups and self-defense routine. Gramps had said she should take another month or so to practice before she was ready for combat training (which Gray decided the best way to practice was through sparring matches), which Gray had decided to follow. For this next month, she'd be focusing on her basic punching, blocking and kicking techniques now that she had her balance and falling down.
He kept things simple, demonstrating each new move until he was sure she had it, then observing her and correcting when she messed up and praising her when she did well. When she looked up at him eagerly for an explanation of why putting her feet in that way worked better than standing like this, he did his best to explain but still had to resort to more 'because it works' than he liked.
It was nine o'clock when Gray told her to stop, take a breather, and stretch out again in preparation for the more intense training. He walked her through her stretches, helping her push just that little bit more than she could do on her own, and then slowly easing up until she was warm and limber. He hadn't changed the basic exercises much. She still did push-ups, sit-ups, squats and pull-ups. She still played catch-the-coin and hopscotch - he'd never thought a girl's game like hopscotch could be used for training, go Gramps! - and ran the stairs. But he did add some things which had made eliminating her meditation time necessary.
The biggest part of his plan was the obstacle course. When he'd shown Gramps his original design, the guild master had given the crude drawing an incredulous look and laughed, asking Gray how he expected a nine-year-old to be able to climb an ice wall and cross monkey bars made of ice without falling and breaking an ankle. Gray had reconsidered after that, and toned it down to things that didn't involve vertical surfaces or heights.
The first obstacle was a series of ankle-high rings that Roxanne had to navigate without tripping, putting her feet down in the holes rather than on the slippery surfaces of the rings themselves. He wanted her to focus on accuracy rather than speed, but if she felt confident then she was to push herself to go faster.
Then came a net suspended only a foot above the ground with dull-tipped barbs that would catch clothing without scratching skin. She had to crawl under it without catching her clothes and, at the same time, avoid the obstacles he placed in her way.
Third - and his personal favorite - was a ball pit he'd made by turning the water in the park's fountain into thick-sided ice bubbles. She had to flounder-slash-swim her way through it to the far side, her footing treacherous since the floor was concealed by the balls, and then climb out despite her hands being wet and slippery.
Finally, he'd made a bunch of dummies that spun at the slightest touch to give stinging but not dangerous smacks to her belly, legs and arms. She had to get around them while returning, blocking or dodging every blow she saw coming. This was designed to begin her combat training due to the level of unpredictability, and it would also help with her reflexes, footwork, and blocking techniques.
The course ended with her running up the flight of stairs to where he waited for that extra bit of leg strengthening, stopwatch in hand.
"Not bad," he grinned at her once she made it to him. She was obviously tired, her neat braid somewhat bedraggled and soaked through with sweat despite the ice everywhere combating Fiore's summer heat. "Get your breath back, and then try it again."
Roxanne bit back a whimper, and went back to the starting line without another sound. There, she crouched over, bracing her hands on her knees, and took deep, even breaths to help her breath steady.
When she finally dragged her way up to him the second time, he grinned and ruffled her hair, ignoring the water droplets that were flicked this way and that by the motion. "Good job," he said. "You did a lot better that time." She'd cut almost thirty seconds off her time, which was a pretty impressive improvement.
Roxanne grinned back at him, panting, cheeks flushed with praise as well as tiredness. "Thanks. I just knew what I was doing that time," she admitted.
"Which means you learned from the first run," Gray shrugged. "Good job." He didn't give false praise, and maybe he wasn't doing things exactly the way Ur or Master Makarov would have, but Roxanne was a girl, and from what Lucy had said, she'd been pretty sheltered before she'd been flung out into the world. A lot of kids like that never got past being pampered and useless, so Gray hoped to encourage Roxanne into being a more productive, self-sufficient individual by praising her when she put in effort and gently pointing out her mistakes. He wanted her to keep working hard, keep learning.
Gray melted his obstacle course, declaring that twice was enough for the first day, and Roxanne was glad to see it go. But when Gray produced a huge pile of snowballs, she almost took it back.
"Um, we're not having a snowball fight, are we?" she asked nervously. Los Angeles winters weren't made for snowball fights, so the only times she'd seen snow were when her parents took the family on a rare skiing trip, and even then she'd mostly just made snowmen. If it came down to a snowball fight, Gray would slaughter her.
Gray snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. You're already pretty worn out." Besides, if he started something interactive like that, chances were he'd start stripping and, with an impressionable little girl as a student, that just wasn't right. "Your going to be throwing these snowballs at this target," he said. Moving a short distance away, he smacked one fist into the opposite palm, calling to the scintillating core of his soul where his magic dwelled. A target rose from the ground, moisture wicked from the air to form a solid disk of ice. On a last, humorous whim, he formed a particular, funny image at its center.
Roxanne burst into giggles without thought, clapping both hands over her mouth until she had herself under control again.
Gray grinned. "All you have to do is hit the bullseye three times in a row," he said, tapping the target's center, where Natsu's face stood out, the same terrified look he got whenever Erza glared at him stamped indelibly on icy features.
"Okay!" Roxanne chirped, hands dropping from her mouth as she mastered herself.
"Oh, one more thing," Gray added, walking back over to her. "You have to stand behind here." He laid a stick that had fallen from the tree earlier on the ground about ten feet from the target.
"Every time you hit the bullseye three times in a row, I'll move the stick back five feet. But tomorrow, the stick goes right back to where it is now and the process starts over. Eventually, the line will start out further and further away from the target as you get better and stronger. Once it starts at a certain distance, I'll put the target on a track to make it a moving target. I'll explain more at that point."
Roxanne nodded again as she absorbed this new information. Her head spun, and she felt terribly intimidated - could she live up to his expectations? It was just throwing a snowball, but for some reason it felt enormously more important than what she'd done before, as if his earlier praise would mean nothing if she failed. She wasn't sure why she felt like that, but she was still scared.
But mostly she didn't want Gray to think that he had been saddled with a weak student. So she clenched her jaw, stuck out her chin, and took a deep breath. She was going to try her best and tackle her training one step at a time.
Satisfied and reinvigorated, she nodded once more and picked up a snowball, dimly noticing that it was too big to hold well. At this distance, hitting the bullseye was theoretically easy, but that theory was soon proven false. Roxanne threw the ball, subconsciously pulling from her memories of movies and baseball games on the TV since she had no experience of her own. She wound up like a pitcher would, looked the target-Natsu in the eyes and let the snowball fly without really controlling where her arm went.
The snowball didn't even come close to hitting the target. Instead, it went too high and to the left. Roxanne bit her lip and breathed, letting disappointment follow nervousness.
"It's okay, Roxanne" Gray said, standing back to observe. "Try again."
Roxanne breathed a little more, and picked up another snowball. She weighed it in her hand, feeling how dense and well-packed it was, the slight moisture from where the sun melted little bits of snow, drop by tiny drop. The snowball was much lighter than a rubber ball, and definitely not as bouncy, but it didn't just crumble in her hand, either. The snowball was built for Gray's hand, too, not hers; it was a little too large to grip easily or firmly. There were a lot of factors as to why her first throw had gone so awry despite the short distance, but inexperience and hastiness were probably the biggest.
Once she was comfortable with the snowball, she eyed the target critically, making a few throwing motions to get herself adjusted to it. Then she took a breath, wound up, fixed her eyes on the target and let the snowball fly.
She missed again, but this time it was much closer, clipping the upper left edge of the target. Roxanne felt encouraged, especially when she saw Gray nodding approvingly. Now I know that I tend to miss up and left, so I need to aim down and right.
She grabbed another snowball and tried again, making sure that she moved her arm instead of just staring at Natsu's face and expecting her body to correct itself. This time it flew too low, but was centered enough to strike the target's supporting base.
Okay, try a little higher.
The fourth snowball fared better, striking the outer ring of the target only a little to the left of the center. It was the tenth try that struck the bullseye, making Roxanne shriek excitedly.
"I did it!" A glance in Gray's direction saw him smiling with amusement and his eyes were pleased, so Roxanne quickly scooped up another snowball, determined to hit the bullseye twice more and move the stick back.
To her dismay, she missed the bullseye, the snowball shattering on the left side of the target instead. But she didn't give up. Taking a moment to calm and center herself once again, she lined up her next shot carefully. She clipped the right edge of the target. Her next two found the bullseye, followed by one that missed. So close! After three more throws, she finally got her three-in-a-row streak, and shrieked with excitement, jumping around while Gray chuckled and moved the stick back the promised five feet.
Despite his amusement, Gray was once again impressed with Roxanne. Sure, she wasn't as good at throwing snowballs as himself, or Natsu, or even Romeo, but it was pretty obvious that she'd never tried anything like this before, never had the kind of rough-and-tumble childhood that gave as many lessons as it did friends, or even any kind of more structured training.
But she makes up for that lack of experience through observation and analysis. Not only does she figure out what she's doing wrong, but she fixes it on the next try, and she doesn't give up when it isn't perfect. She doesn't quite have the hand-eye coordination to hit whatever she aims at yet, but she's observant and stubborn enough to compensate for her limitations, and she gives her all to the task at hand, regardless of what it is. Gray noted all of this to himself, filing the information away for reflection later tonight.
Still, as she got farther from her target, things would get harder. She'd learned the basics of how to aim; now she'd need to account for the ballistic arc.
Roxanne's first try at the fifteen-foot mark proved him right - the snowball didn't even reach the target, shattering on the grass a foot in front and to the left of its base. The second snowball was no better, wobbling wildly off to the side, though at least it passed the target. The third was a bit better, but didn't even brush the target's rim. Four more snowballs flew in increasingly erratic arcs as her frustration built, until finally Roxanne stopped, scowling in concentration at the next snowball she'd picked up, clearly trying to figure out what she was doing wrong. She glared at the snowball as if it was the ball's fault she couldn't hit the target. But Gray could tell she was thinking because he could practically see the gears in her head working.
He decided that it was time to step in. "Roxanne," he said, stepping closer as she turned wide, near-frantic, watering eyes on him. "Relax. Remember, it's your first day. This is as much about figuring out what you can do already as it is about learning to improve."
"But I can't figure it out!" she protested shakily, accidentally squashing the snowball as she gripped it a little too hard. She dropped the clumps of snow to the ground, dusting flakes off cold-reddened fingers that trembled with worry and frustration. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong."
"And that's okay," Gray said, shrugging. "Look, I had trouble with this too."
Roxanne blinked up at him, eyes wide. "Really?" she asked, surprise and wonder overcoming her fear that she was going to be a failure, that she wouldn't measure up, that she'd let her teacher down. "I didn't know you had to throw snowballs at a target." That had never been covered in the flashbacks. What else didn't she know, that had been deemed too unimportant for the anime to show?
"I did," Gray shrugged, crouching down to look her in the eye. Maybe that was why Gramps got along so well with kids; he was fun-size in addition to his patience and wisdom. "That's why I picked this, since it's something I'm familiar with. Do you want me to tell you what you're missing?" He respected her determination; he wouldn't undermine it by giving advice that she might not want to hear.
He needn't have worried.
"Yes, please," Roxanne said fervently, grabbing his hands. She wanted to do it right, wanted to succeed, to show him she could do it the way he wanted her to.
Gray smiled and gently pulled his hands free, ruffling her hair again. "You're not letting go of the snowball in the right spot of your throw," he said as he turned to the target and pointed at Natsu. "See, when you're further away, the snowball has more time to fall, so you can't just throw it straight at the target. Here, watch." He picked up one of the snowballs, absently reinforcing the magic on the pile while he stood. Standing straight at the target, he wound up and slammed the snowball right in Natsu's stupid, terrified face. "See, I'm a lot stronger and taller than you are, so I can just slam it from here with no problem. But if I was you, I'd have to throw more like this." He crouched down to her height, picked up another snowball. He threw it more slowly so that Roxanne could see what he was doing, and he let his fingertips graze the ball as it left his grasp. "Did you see?"
Roxanne had watched both throws intently, and while an inner part of her wanted to squeal with glee as Gray hit the target hard enough to make the snowball basically explode, she held that part back in favor of trying to see what he did the second time that she could imitate. "The snowball was spinning?" she asked hesitantly.
"Exactly." Gray nodded. "See, if the snowball is rolling up and back towards you like that, it counters a little bit of how gravity and air drag it downwards." He twirled his index fingers around each other for emphasis. "Plus, since you can't throw hard enough to make a straight line yet, you have to throw in an arc, and changing where you let go of the ball changes the angles. Here." He moved over to crouch next to her again, gripping her wrist and elbow to move her arm through the motions as he spoke. "You were throwing like this, when you should have been letting go right here, and letting your fingertips kind of graze the ball as it sails away to give that spin."
"Oh!" Roxanne lit up as understanding dawned. "I see! I get it now!" It was like putting a spin on a bowling ball so it stayed in the middle of the lane instead of wandering off into the gutter.
Gray smiled and backed away so she could practice, retrieving the shirt he'd somehow managed to shuck out of, and pulled it back on. Roxanne took a few false-start practice throws to get used to the form he'd shown her, before taking aim at the target and actually letting it fly.
It still didn't hit the bullseye, but it did hit the target. Twenty snowballs later, she still hadn't managed three bullseyes in a row, but she'd made a lot of progress and he could see that her throwing arm was getting tired.
"That was good," he said as he made his way back over towards her as the target and the balls disappeared. "You learned a lot from that."
She started dancing on her toes, thrilled by his praise even though she hadn't managed to move the stick back a second time. "That was kinda fun!" she exclaimed, quite pleased with her own progress. "Can we do that again tomorrow?"
"Absolutely," Gray chuckled. He'd already told her that, but he couldn't blame her for wanting confirmation. "But, for now, let's take a short break, okay?" He checked his watch again. "Say, five minutes or so. I've got a game I'd like to try - I think it'll be right up your alley, once you get used to it. And since I haven't played it in a while, this will be fun for me, too! Heck, I'm so out of practice that you might get the better of me."
"Cool!" Roxanne bounced on her toes again, giggling at the accidental pun. "What kind of game is it?" Ice would make a great medium for a lot of games, but she wasn't sure which ones would be good for training.
Gray smiled at her enthusiasm. It was really hard not to keep ruffling her hair, but she'd probably start to resent it if he did it too often. "I call it Hit the Birdie. My mentor used to let her other apprentice Lyon and I play it together." Lyon's 'birdies' had literally flown around, making gameplay borderline impossible until Ur put her foot down. "She said it does a lot of good things for your body, but mostly it builds hand-eye coordination and reflexes."
"That sounds like fun!" Roxanne nodded, shunting aside her desire to squeal and pounce on the mention of Lyon and Ur. She couldn't let on that she knew who they were yet sos he had to reign in her questions until later. "How do you play?"
Gray grinned and moved over to the stick that still lay on the ground. Using that as a marker, he created two poles with a thin, shimmering sheet of ice between them that could act as a net. It was thin and smooth enough to see through, so they'd both know what the other was doing, but he'd left enough deliberate inclusions in the ice to give it a very lightly 'frosted' look, so they wouldn't forget where it was. Next came the rackets - they were harder, since they couldn't just be solid sheets of ice. They had to have elasticity, something ice was uniquely suited not to have. Once he'd made the frames, he grew a hexagonal web-work of thin ice strings, tuning the magic carefully to give the ice properties natural ice would never have. In some ways, it was similar to how Macao could make fire that 'clung' to other objects, despite fire normally being pretty much intangible. It also made the ice-lines a far deeper blue as his magic saturated them.
Roxanne watched in utter fascination. This wasn't quick-and-dirty battle-magic like in the show. This was something much more mundane, and at the same time more amazing. It didn't take a long time for him to finish the long-handled rackets - no more than a few seconds - but she got to watch the crystals grow and form, and it was a fascinating process. I want that. Roxanne realized as desire burned in her heart so hot that it made her throat ache. I want to be able to do that.
It wasn't until Gray produced the 'Birdie', though, that she realized exactly what game this was. The Birdie was a plum-sized half-hollow ball of ice with a netted ring of fins on the back side, and Gray produced it by placing the 'ball' in the palm of one hand and then laying the other hand atop it and pulling away in a short gesture, the net growing up beneath his hands like rock candy in reverse. The ball split in half and the fins sprouted up from the flat sides of each, creating two Birdies rather than one.
"And there we are." Gray nodded to himself, tossing and catching one Birdie a few times to check that the balance wasn't off. The front half of the 'ball' was faintly blue, a testament to the extra magic that went into it, since it had to have a hard-rubber texture or it would crack during play. "All you have to do is hit the Birdie up over the net to my side of the court, and then I'll hit it back to you."
Roxanne found herself smiling confidently despite herself. Badminton! Hit the Birdie is badminton! she cheered inwardly. She was so glad to find a game that she was familiar with and loved.
Grinning, she took her racket and raced to the court. "Ready when you are, Gray!" she shouted once she was in position in her favorite spot.
Gray paused, smile faltering. He'd noticed the confidence in her eyes, which meant that she was familiar with the game, and that had caught him off guard. He knew that Ur hadn't invented Hit the Birdie, but when he'd first come to Magnolia, no one else had known it. He'd thought it was unique to Isvan.
Note to self: do not underestimate student's potential experience.
Gray moved over to his own court, watching his apprentice with unerring, analytical eyes. He chose a spot that was centered on his side, the better to react to something unexpected until such time as he knew Roxanne's proficiency and could thus choose a spot that was particularly effective against her. As a bonus, going to the middle would prevent her from figuring out his own tendencies beforehand because it was something a novice would do, thinking that it was better to have an equal amount of space on all sides.
Roxanne narrowed her eyes in concentration, trying to analyze his own placement and what that would mean for where the birdie would go. And, as he tossed the birdie on the racket a few times in preparation, she moved to the spot she thought most likely.
Gray was glad he'd noticed her confidence. If he hadn't, he'd probably have gotten creamed in the first round while going easy on her until he'd caught on to her experience. Now, though, he could more accurately assess her while keeping his own defenses up. Losing to your apprentice on the first day is not cool, he told himself wryly, catching the birdie on the racket and holding it up in a visual cue to Roxanne that the game was about to begin. It's the kind of thing that gets you mocked by idiot Salamanders.
Roxanne nodded and braced herself, raising her racket until it was level with the rest of her arm and slightly behind while she slid into the balanced stance from her self-defense training. Gray nodded approvingly and tossed the birdie into the air. He watched it fly up, then turn and come back down ball-first. He waited until it was at the right height, then he lifted his racket and swung underhand with a light touch, expertly popping the birdie over the net.
Roxanne had to race forward to get to the birdie before it hit the ground. She had expected Gray to hit it where she had been, and then figured that he would hit it over her head when he realized she'd played this game before. She hadn't expected him to hit the birdie short of her position, so she had to adjust quickly. Thankfully, her racket met the birdie and easily flicked it into the air and backwards into her court, buying her a bit of time to re-center herself for her own hit. She hit the birdie over the net, aiming for the ground just barely on his side, and watched as Gray darted forward and easily caught it. Bouncing it on the racket once, he backed up to gain more ground, then he hit the birdie with far more strength than before. His goal was the far end of Roxanne's court while she was near the net.
When she saw how much strength he was putting into the return, Roxanne retreated, turning her back to him to get more speed rather than risk tripping and losing , she had been right, and the birdie came sailing smoothly towards her. She smiled and hit it back the moment it came into range, sending hers to the side of his court that was furthest from him and closer to the net, which meant that he'd have to scramble to get to the birdie in time.
He, of course, met the birdie and returned it to Roxanne, and she hit it back to him. They parried with increasingly difficult-to-reach targets and near-catches, until the volley was broken when Roxanne was just a fraction of a second too late. To Gray's surprise and pleasure, Roxanne took the loss well, merely stomping her foot once in wordless disappointment before scooping the birdie up with the rim of her racket and looking to him for permission to resume play.
"Go ahead," Gray nodded. "You obviously know how to play, so you might as well serve."
Roxanne beamed, spirits restored, and tossed the birdie upwards.
They kept playing for several rounds, and Gray was genuinely impressed by Roxanne's intuition. She seemed to be reading him almost expertly, guessing where he'd send the birdie more often than not and saving herself precious fractions of a second. What he didn't know was that Roxanne was factoring in not only his body language but what she knew of his personality to arrive at those guesses. It certainly wasn't easy to return the birdie in a way that would challenge him as much as he was challenging her, because Gray had twice the reach she did and much better reflexes. But he was still underestimating her. His knowledge of her reflexes and response time came from their earlier training, things she had been largely unfamiliar with and thus lacked the proper instincts to perform without conscious thought. She was capable of more than he thought she was because she had struggled with the exercises, and that's what he wasn't fully prepared for. He had a base for his own impressions of her abilities, but he didn't know that her impressions of him were much larger and stemmed from more than a few exercises.
Gray decided to end the game after several rounds and when he checked the time he was shocked to find that they had been playing for far longer than he'd thought - an hour longer. To his utter amazement, when he looked at Roxanne, he saw that she was breathing hard but otherwise seemed unfazed by the exertion.
"Okay," he said, wiping a little sweat from his own brow, "walk a little bit to cool down, and then we'll do final stretches."
"Yes, Gray." Roxanne nodded, chin up, and her jaw clenched a little bit as she started walking steadily around the edges of the 'court'.
Gray frowned to himself a little as he carefully vaporized their equipment. He'd been sure that she'd be on the ground passed out from exhaustion by now, or - more likely - throwing up from overexertion despite how he'd toned the training regimen down from his original plans. Then again, one of the reasons Gramps had been so adamant that he tone it down was because Roxanne was stubborn.
Keep an eye on her, Gray. Roxanne is eager to please, and on top of that she's tenacious. She'll act tough and pretend she can handle much more than she really can if you let her. Do not let her, and let her know that it's okay to show how tired she is.
He groaned silently to himself and joined her on her second lap, looking his apprentice over with a much more critical eye. Her face was flushed red, not green. She was still breathing heavily, but she wasn't panting like a bellows. And she seemed to be walking steadily, not shivering or swaying. And when she looked up at him, she held his gaze easily without her eyes drooping and they were clear and bright with rapt attention. Maybe he was worrying for nothing?
After a third lap, Gray walked Roxanne through a final set of cooldown stretches, making sure that she wouldn't stiffen up too badly or get sick after all of that exertion.
"We've done enough for now," he said, checking his watch again. "Let's go get some food at the guild hall. You've definitely earned the extra meal."
"Okay," Roxanne agreed, forcing herself not to wobble as she picked up the shirt Gray had shed at some point during their second match. "Here you go." She couldn't manage the energy or enthusiasm she'd had before - she could barely keep from falling over, and it took everything she had not to show it.
"Thanks." Gray ruffled her hair, and then mentally smacked himself for it as he pulled the shirt on over his head. Hadn't he decided he wasn't going to do that anymore? And when had he taken his shirt off? "Let's go. I can hear your stomach rumbling from here," he teased.
Roxanne flushed, but lifted her chin and tried not to show it. Maybe a rumbling stomach was unladylike, but after so much exercise she thought she was allowed. She followed her mentor as he left the park, doing her best to keep pace with him and to not show how very tired she was.