A/N: This chapter was challenging. Also, sorry for the later update than I'd planned. Stuff was busy this weekend. D;
Edit: Found an image to use for the story cover. I found it through a Google search and couldn't figure out who owned it but... No copyright infringement intended, I didn't create the image, if anyone knows who made it, I'd love to know.
Disclaimer: I don't own ToS. If I did, Yuan would have a lot more scenes so I could stare at his pretty hair. :3
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It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
-William James
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Skye awakens from a dream that she can't remember the details of when she feels something shaking her left shoulder. She was sleeping on her right side, so she rolls over to face whoever is waking her up. She opens her light blue eyes and finds herself looking up into Yuan's emerald-colored orbs.
"You're quite the heavy sleeper, you know that? I've been trying to wake you up for about five minutes now," he says exasperatedly. "I apologize for walking into your room like this, but you weren't waking up by my knocking on the door, so I decided it would be easier to just come in."
"I'm sorry," Skye says sheepishly, rubbing the sleepiness out of one eye. Yesterday must've been more draining to her than she thought, because she doesn't usually sleep so deeply.
"Meet me in Kratos' room in an hour. We have things to discuss regarding your training. Your closet is already stocked with some clothes," Yuan says abruptly before leaving the room.
Skye gets out of bed and decides that she'll take a shower before going to meet Kratos and Yuan. She walks over to the closet and after opens it. It's larger than she thought it would be, it's actually a (admittedly cramped) walk in closet. There are two bars hanging on the wall to the left and right of the door with shelves underneath each, and on the far side there is a chest of drawers. After looking around, she realizes that Yuan's definition of "stocked with some clothes," is quite different from what she would describe it as. There is one shirt and a jacket hanging up, a pair of pants on the shelf underneath of them, and after opening the chest of drawers to see what's inside, she finds one pair of socks and some undergarments. The clothes are basically identical to the ones she had before, except they're in themes of gold and black rather than blue and light gray. There is a gold sleeveless top and a black jacket with gold trim around the collar and on the ends of the sleeves, as well as matching black pants. The seams running down the outside of the pant legs are done in gold-colored thread as well.
She grabs the clothes and underclothes and walks into the bathroom, shutting the door. It's just an ordinary bathroom, fitting the theme of the rest of the city of Welgaia - white, white, and more white. However, it is a decent size. She sets her clothes down on the counter next to the sink, looks around the room until she locates some shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, and then walks over to turn on the water in the shower. She sticks her hand into the spray a few times until she feels that the water is the perfect temperature, undresses, and steps in.
After her taking her shower, getting dressed, and brushing her teeth, she's ready to go meet with Yuan and Kratos. She leaves her room and walks a little ways down the hallway. The room is just down two doors from hers, right? She knocks on the door of what she hopes is Kratos' room and after a moment it's opened and the red-haired angel steps aside to let her into the room.
Kratos' room is identical structurally to hers, but has touches of personalization. There are many books on Kratos' bookshelf, which is a dark-stained wood as opposed to Skye's white-painted one, and Skye wonders offhandedly if he's read them all, or if he even likes to read. Maybe they are for research purposes? She doesn't know him well enough to know. There are a few potted plants scattered decoratively throughout the room, some bearing small flowers among their leaves, and small violet colored rugs in front of each doorway. She had expected the serious-seeming man that is Kratos to have a more sparsely decorated room, and was a bit surprised at the contrast of reality to her imaginings.
She spies Yuan sitting on the couch a few feet away, one leg crossed over the opposite knee, looking relaxed. The couch is white with small throw pillows on each end matching the violet rugs around the room. There is a dark-stained wooden coffee table matching the bookshelf in front of the couch, as well.
"Morning," she says as she walks into the room and Kratos closes the door behind her. "So what is it we needed to discuss?"
"Have you had any magical training?" Yuan asks her.
"No."
"Do you know anything about using magic?"
"Well I know that I'm able to, in theory, because I'm a half-elf," she says. "But I don't know the specifics of how to use it, no."
Yuan looks at Kratos. "Then I think we should start her with physical training in the mornings, and whenever you are finished then I'll take her for magical."
Kratos nods in agreement. "That sounds reasonable," he says to Yuan. He then turns to Skye. "This would be the best way for you to learn efficiently, I think. While you may be physically exhausted after we're done, you should still have the mental energy left to work with Yuan. If we had you start with Yuan first, you might not be able to handle the strain of physical training on top of the magical," he explains. "We had thought about not making you do both types of training every day, but you would be a more useful member after having some training, and Yggdrasill is hoping to start sending you on at least small assignments within a few weeks."
Skye is solemn. He wants to start sending her away within a few weeks? She wants to be a useful member of this organization, but she feels that she's not going to be ready by then. She doesn't know anything about fighting! How can she even hope to learn the skills she'll need in such a short amount of time…?
Then she remembers the vow she made to herself last night, and her resolve returns. If the two men saw the hesitance, perhaps even fear, which was on her face, they didn't say anything about it. They exchanged a look with each other, however, upon seeing the fierce determination that came after it.
"Well, let's get this show on the road then," she says. "I'm not going to improve any just standing around here."
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For what was probably the thirtieth time that morning, Skye was knocked onto her backside. She was so frustrated and tired that she was thinking about giving up already. Since Skye had no weapons training at all, nor any magical talent, Kratos decided to just give her a sword and small shield and train her in his own fighting style. She didn't have any particular preference for the type of weapons she was going to be using anyway, and it would be much easier for her to simply emulate him, than to try to come up with her own style of fighting for now. When she was more experienced then she could change her style if she wanted to.
She's not learning to attack yet, just to defend. She needs to learn her weak points before trying to exploit someone else's, Kratos told her. They had started that morning with some exercises meant to strengthen her muscles, and then he showed her the weapon she would be using and gave her a small shield. He immediately attacked her, and obviously that didn't last long. He said that he did that so that he could see the way her natural thought process worked, and how she reacted to enemies. Did she immediately rely on her equipment and strength to defend, or did she attempt to use speed to simply evade an enemy? Would she attempt a counterattack, or stay on the defensive? Or maybe she would simply freeze from fear?
After analyzing her natural reaction patterns, he decided to teach her properly. He saw that she wasn't particularly strong, and told her that she should be using her shield to deflect blows, not "catch" them. She also had a tendency to keep her feet too close together and end up overbalancing when she was attacked, which was why she had just been knocked to the ground, coincidentally.
"Get up."
Skye grimaced. "Yeah, yeah, I know," she said, getting to her feet and brushing herself off.
"Tell me what you did wrong this time," he says.
"I stopped paying attention to where my feet were, and fell when you struck at me because they weren't spaced far enough apart," she admits.
"Good, you've learned something," he says sheathing his sword.
She sighs. They've been training for a couple of hours, and she's exhausted already. "I'm starting to think I'm just not cut out for this," she mutters under her breath.
"If you keep telling yourself that, then it'll become true," Kratos says. "You need to believe in yourself."
Skye blushes a bit; she didn't know that he'd heard her. She hears a slow clap from to the right of her across the large area outside the housing building that they were using to train. She looks over and sees Yuan.
"You ready to learn some magic?" he asks, sounding slightly amused. He must have seen her last, and particularly clumsy, fall.
"No. But yes," she says as he walks over to them. "Might as well get it over with for the day, I suppose. I'm exhausted," she admits as she retrieves her sword from where it landed when she fell. She didn't even remember dropping it, but she must have at some point.
Yuan watches her for a minute. She looks rather exhausted, but more than that, she looks quite frustrated. Her movements are a bit jerky, but she's also shaking a bit. Yuan knows that the reason for the shaking is just the rigorous training though. He remembers when he was first learning to fight, and he was a bit shaky after the first few sessions as well, so he can't really blame her.
"Why don't you take a break for a little bit first? Calm down, get something to eat, maybe? When learning magic you need to be calm or you might hurt yourself," Yuan says. "It's close enough to lunch anyway."
His latter sentence prompts her to look a little more frustrated.
"How can you guys even tell what time it is in this place? It always looks the same. That damn purple sky never changes," she says a bit sullenly.
There was a small twitch of Kratos' lips that might indicate that he was amused. Yuan flat out laughed.
"I see what the problem is, now," Yuan says.
"After you've been here long enough you just know what time it is. It just becomes a… instinctual feeling, I suppose you could say," Kratos explains. "But perhaps we could find a clock for your room," he says. Skye notices that there are times when he doesn't quite smile, he's a bit too stoic for that, but his reddish-brown eyes seem to… get a bit warmer, maybe? This is one of those times, though. She thinks that maybe that's his version of a smile.
"I'd appreciate that," she says honestly. She picks up her black jacket from where she had set it when she had gotten a little too warm while they were training and uses it to wipe some sweat from her forehead. She pushes her bangs out of her eyes and runs her fingers through her hair to straighten it up a bit. "So, where's the food around this place anyway?"
"Your kitchen hasn't been stocked yet, so you'll have to come back to one of our rooms. Whoever makes a trip down to Aselia next will have to pick you up some food," Yuan explains. "There's also a cafeteria run by a couple of the lesser angels, mostly for the benefit of Yggdrasill, but they're only serving at specific times. It's too early for lunch right now, and you've already missed breakfast."
"Okay, I get it. So who's feeding me today?" she asks jokingly with a wide smile, showing white teeth.
"I've got some other things to take care of," Kratos says.
"Guess I've just been volunteered, then," Yuan says, heading back into the building. "Keep up," he tells Skye.
"Right!" she says, walking after him. They make their way back to Yuan's place and go through a door in his office that she hadn't noticed before. It takes them into a decent-sized kitchen. Skye pulls a chair out from a small table and sits down. Yuan walks over to the refrigerator and takes out some things that Skye can't see and starts preparing something at the counter.
She finds herself watching his back as he works at the counter. After all, he's really the only interesting thing in the room right now. She takes notice of his broad shoulders and his narrow waist, his long teal hair, and his admittedly nice backside. She starts to wonder why all of the men she seems to be surrounded by lately are so attractive… and blushes faintly as she notices that he has turned around and started walking toward her while she was staring.
He doesn't seem to notice and hands her the plate in his left hand, and sits down across from her with the other one and starts eating the sandwich that is on it. She takes a look at the sandwich he gave her and sees that it's a cold chicken sandwich with lettuce and tomato slices on it. She's trying to make up her mind about whether she should take the tomato slices off and hope that he doesn't think it's too rude, or whether she should just force herself to eat it.
"Something wrong?" he asks.
She decides to just set the tomato slices on the side of her plate and eat the sandwich. "Sorry, I just don't really like tomatoes. Never have."
Yuan shrugs. "It's alright. I suppose I should have asked whether you liked the things before I put them on there," he says as he grabs the tomato slices off of her plate and pops one in his mouth, putting the other on his sandwich. "Kratos doesn't like them either," he says after he finishes eating it.
She can't quite imagine Kratos openly displaying his dislike of anything, but she believes him. "Thanks for the food, though. It's good."
He nods and they finish eating in silence. Yuan grabs their plates and takes them over to the sink and comes back with a glass of water. It's filled up about half-way. Instead of handing it to her, he sets it in the middle of the table and smacks her hand away when she tries to pick it up, assuming that it's hers.
"You can have this glass of water after you learn to use some water magic," he explains.
She mentally groans. Of course he couldn't just give her the water. He seems to read her mind and smirks, emerald eyes amused. "Relax, it shouldn't be too hard."
He sits back down across from her. "Now, I'm going to try and make this as easy for you as possible. The first thing I want you to do is close your eyes and use your senses and imagine what water 'feels' like to each one of them. Imagine how it feels to take a drink of water, imagine the rain on your skin; imagine the smell of the sea. Imagine what the ocean looks like at sunset, and imagine the sound of the rain on the roof of your home."
"Now, take those feelings, and imagine some of the mana from your body taking the form of water. What I want you to do is push that mana out from your body and fill up the rest of this glass," he explains.
Skye is motionless, trying to do what he told her to. After a few moments, a small little jet of water comes out of nowhere and shoots out to the left of the glass by a couple of inches. "That's it?" she asks disappointedly.
He laughs. "What'd you expect? You've never performed magic before. Everyone starts somewhere."
"I guess you're right," she admits.
He instructs her for a couple of hours more until she gets the hang of using that particular water spell, and can produce three small water jets. He tells her that the spell she's learning is similar to "aqua edge," and that she'll probably be able to fully use the spell later.
Skye feels proud. She feels like she's really accomplished something today. She imagines that someday, maybe she'll be as powerful the two seraphim teaching her… but she has a long way to go if that's ever going to happen. However, for now, this is good enough. She has more than just a purpose now; she has a goal that she can actively work towards. She's starting to believe in herself. She can do this.
She wonders if Mistral would be proud of her progress.
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A/N: Are my characters too OOC? Constructive criticism is nice, so review! Thanks for reading! :)